Kkangpae
by ObscENyx
Summary: Jin-Ye, the "under-privileged child" taken in by the Isobe family, is the withdrawn, anxious girl of class 1A at Ouran High School. She suffers a panic attack in class after receiving a strange letter, drawing the attention of the Host Club.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is the first chapter of Kkangpae, an Ouran Host Club fanfiction and the first fanfic of mine that I'm actually posting online. I'm pretty insecure about this, mainly because I spend too much time talking to elitists that swear up and down that anything involving an OC is the shittiest thing ever written. I'm going to try not to get discouraged on this one, though, since this plot bunny simply will not leave me alone. This chapter is kind of short, and I apologize for that.

First off, I have to say this so I don't get flamed for it (though I probably will anyway): this fic has a lot of elements of Korean culture in it, being that the main character is Korean. I am not an expert on Korean culture. I am learning about it, and I look up anything that seems off to me, but some things may be wrong.

Second, I've worked very hard to ensure that the OC this fic centers around is not a Sue. I've had other writers review the character profile for me, I've compared her to infamous Sues, and she has passed the Litmus Test with a 14. If she comes off as a Sue, at any point, please feel free to give some constructive criticism. I always welcome honest feedback.

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><p><em>Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.<em>

_"Andrew!"_

_Another bang. A body hits the metal floor of the subway station._

_People are screaming. Everyone's pushing, panicking, rushing to get away. Two men are running in the opposite direction. A gun drops from one of them. Neither seems to notice as they hurry on._

_Mom is grasping my face with sweaty hands. Tears stream down her face. Her accent is more pronounced than usual as she speaks. "Eun Ji, honey, we have to go. We have to go to the police. Now. Okay? Turn around. Get back on the train." She tries to usher me back inside. I can't move._

_There's blood everywhere; a giant, crimson puddle, less than two feet in front of me. People almost step in it as they scramble by, the station still in a panic from the gunshots. Everyone wants to escape, but the chaos prevents it._

_Mom's finally pushed me back inside. She hugs me close, her tears turning my brown hair black, her sobs making me shake. I don't really see anything in front of me. I just see dad falling, blood pooling, mom crying._

_I don't want to be in Seoul anymore. I miss Gwangju. I miss Cheonan._

_I miss dad._

Hyun Jin-Ye shot up from the white sheets of her bed, panting, pupils doubled in size. The silk sheets are damp with sweat; the pillow covers are soaked through with tears. Her head whips around the room frantically, taking in her surroundings. The wall of full-length windows on her left, letting the light of the moon shine into the large room. The pale gray walls. The modern furniture. The hardwood floor. The yellow dress hanging from a hook on the door. Finally, she began to calm down.

"It's okay. You're in your room. You're okay," she whispered to herself. It was then that the pounding on the door registered. A concerned voice came from the other side.

"Miss Hyun, are you alright? Do you need help?"

_The maid,_ she thought, _it's just the maid._ It took her a moment to find her voice. "I'm fine, thank you. You can go back to sleep, Kotone."

"Are you sure?"

"I said I'm fine!" Jin-Ye snapped. The sound of footsteps going down the hall to the right were the only answer. She glanced at the clock. Bright red letters read 5:44am. With a sigh, she stood, walking to the door and plucking the dress from its hanger. "Might as well get ready."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Chapter two! It took way longer than intended to write and upload, but here it is.

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><p><em>Slap!<em>

A file, colored dark gray and thick with papers, was dropped onto a desk by a young, yet intimidating Korean man with dyed blond hair. "Kim-seonbae, this was addressed to you."

The middle-aged man seated behind the desk looked up from his coffee, glanced at the file, and returned his gaze to the blond man. His glare, dark and threatening, made the younger squirm. "What is it?" he snapped.

"Something you'll like, boss."

The elder's eyes narrowed. He pushed the file towards the blond with the tip of his pen. "You open it," he demanded. The other man held in his sigh, flipped the file open, and pushed it back to its original space. The aged man stared at the first paper on the stack—a coverpage, it seemed.

_'The Locations and Identities of Karube Eun Ji and Kim Soohyun'_

He gaped. It couldn't be. He had ten of his best men searching for those two—and had for over two years now!

Yet there were their names, plain as day on the pure white paper. The sender, whoever they were, had even included pictures. She had aged since he's last seen her, but it was Soohyun, no question. Her beauty hadn't faded at all in the decade and a half they'd been separated. His dear, sweet Soohyun...

He scowled at the other picture. "She looks too much like that Japanese bastard," he muttered under his breath. Her hair was dark brown, her eyes light brown, like the dead man he still hated so much. The only resemblance the child held to her mother were her pale skin and small frame.

He turned the page and smirked. Right there in front of him was everything he had been searching for; aliases, addresses, descriptions and pictures of their disguises... Everything he could possibly need to finally find them.

"You're dismissed, Jungsoo."

The blond man left, closing the door behind him.

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><p>A blur of bleached-blond hair and artificially tanned skin darted through the halls of Ouran Academy, emitting high-pitched giggles as it went. A girl with reddish-brown hair chased after, trailing behind the blur and panting. When the blur reached the doors leading into a small, private library, it stopped, twirling around to face the brunette.<p>

The former blur, now a small, brown-eyed girl in ganguro style make up, wore the puffy yellow dress that was the Ouran High girls' uniform and an impatient expression as she stared at her pursuer, tapping her foot against the marble floors.

"Jin-Ye," she whined, "hurry up! We're late as it is!"

The brunette stopped and glared. "You're the one who decided to run the whole way, Machi! I fail athletic classes for a reason!" Her friend rolled her eyes and pushed open the doors she stood before.

The library they stepped into was smaller than the others in the school, converted from an unused classroom at the request of the Isobe family. It was only one floor, whereas most others were two or three, and there weren't nearly as many tables. However, it did serve its purpose; it was a wonderful meeting place for the Ouran Academy Young Writers' Club.

About five other girls already sat inside, typing on computers, sipping tea, reading and socializing. At the sound of the doors of creaking open, they lifted their heads to stare at the newcomers before smiling and returning to what they had been doing.

The Ouran Academy Young Writers' Club, formed two years ago to the day by Hyun Jin-Ye, was arguably the most diverse club in Ouran, despite it having only eight members.

There was the president, Hyun Jin-Ye, a Korean girl taken in by the Isobe widow, Setsuka; the vice president, Fujiwara Ami, whose family was middle-class yet still managed, somehow, to afford her tuition; the treasurer, Kentaro Machi, hyperactive ganguro girl, heiress to the Kentaro fortune and business, and rabid Namie Amuro fan; Okakura Sophie, a vibrant and loud ginger who spoke with a thick accent, adopted by the infertile Okakuras from an Irish orphanage, and the sole heir to their large fortune (though not to Okakura Inc., as the family had sold that shortly before adopting Sophie); Itoh Natsuki, also from a middle-class family (though a very socially prominent one), on a partial scholarship to the school due to her well-known and highly publicized talent for figure skating; Nawabe Shiori, whose parents were somehow related to the creators of Hello Kitty (which likely explained why she herself had such a deep obsession with the merchandise and decorated her uniform with it); Ogyu Saika, who admittedly, was not much different from most girls at the school, though a bit more level-headed; and Tadeshi Aya, the daughter of the CEO of a major record label and a published, fairly popular author who brought in a small fortune on her own.

Sophie bounded up to Jin-Ye and Machi, grinning like a madwoman. "Are we still going out to dinner for the club anniversary?" Machi nodded. They began to talk excitedly—about what, no one but them was really sure, between the speed the bleach-blond talked at and the accent that only Sophie and Machi seemed able to understand—as Jin-Ye wandered over to the large table near the back of the room that was kept for the president, vice president, and treasurer.

Ami, the classical Japanese beauty, already sat at the table, and smiled at the Korean as she approached. Many girls at the school envied the not-quite-commoner for her long, dark hair and milky white skin. The club members thought little of it (although Saika had originally despised the vice president for it, when the club had first been formed).

"Hello Ami-chan," Jin-Ye greeted, setting her bag on the table. Ami nodded in response, returning to the typing she had been preoccupied with.

Once Sophie and Machi had calmed down as much as was physically possible for the human energy balls, Jin-Ye stood from her seat. "So everyone's finished their contest entries, right?"

The first meeting of the second year of the Ouran Academy Young Writers' Club had officially begun.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I'm a bad person. I admit it. I suck.

Sorry it took so long to update, everyone. I wish I could say it was due to family issues or the homework made me do it or something that sounds remotely valid, but I'm just irresponsible and the poster child for procrastination. Hopefully, since holiday break is coming up, my life-that-isn't-really-a-life will be boring enough that I'll have nothing to do but write.

I'm almost done with chapter four as well, so that _should_ be up in a few days, and I am working on some oneshots for New Evolution. Bear with me, folks. I'm an incompetent lazy ass, yes, but I know for a fact that I'm not quite the worst of the bunch. Perhaps there's hope for me yet.

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><p>"<em>Sit down and shut up already!<em>"

A black haired woman groaned when her students continued talking, even growing louder than before. She slammed the stick of chalk she held back into its tray and ran a hand through her hair. "Fine. Talk all you want. But expect a quiz on all of the material we were _supposed_ to cover, first thing tomorrow." Satisfied with the knowledge that only about five of the teens in the room had heard, she sat down and resigned herself to paper grading for the remainder of the day.

Jin-Ye sighed. It was moments like this that solidified her belief that she was never meant to be a teenager. She hastily wrote a note in her planner, reminding herself to study, before flipping open her club binder. She had put it off for two days now, and she was intent on finishing the paper editing for the contest entries. She skimmed the papers, searching for ones without markings. Out of habit, she murmured to herself. "Machi... done. Sophie... done. Shiori... done. Ah! Here it is." She pulled out a paper with Ami's name scrawled at the bottom and stared in confusion. It was immediately clear that something was wrong. She wasn't holding a 5,000 word description of a utopia. It was a letter—addressed to Jin Ye.

_Hyun Jin-Ye,  
>first, I'd like to thank you for dinner last night. You may not be the most perceptive, but you certainly pick restaurants well.<br>As you may have noticed by now, I've left Ouran. I hope the club doesn't miss me too much. I know you won't, for the news I'm about to deliver. Your mother has been discovered in Daegu. They know where you are, and who you are. They are coming for both of you.  
>Do you remember Jongmaru? I'm sure you do. Expect worse.<em>

_The former Vice President of Ouran Young Writers,_  
><em>Fujiwara Ami<em>

Jin-Ye felt choked, felt tears welling up in her eyes. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe, and harder still to think. The world spun.

Danger. Mother was in danger. So was she. They knew where she was. They knew her identity. She was going to die. She screamed, silencing her noisy class and drawing every ounce of attention in the room. The other students of Class 1A stared, utterly lost as the quiet and withdrawn Hyun Jin-Ye screeched and clutched her head, curling into a ball in her chair.

Machi, brushing her wild hair back from her face, rushed to the Korean girl and grabbed her shoulders. "Jin-Ye? Jin-Ye, what's wrong? Why are you screaming?" Jin-Ye squirmed and tried to wrestle the ganguro's hands off of her. Breathing became more and more difficult until finally, her screams were replaced with wheezing as she tried desperately to catch her breath.

She was going to die. That was the only thought in her mind. She was going to die, she was going to die, she was practically dead already. Her mother would be dead, and she would be dead, and all this running would have been wasted effort, and her dreams and goals would be just as dead as her and her family. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, breath erratic and heartbeat growing faster with every second. Her head hurt. She felt dizzy. Is this what dying felt like?

Machi's eyes widened. She was no nurse, but she had paid attention in her first-aid class. She knew what this was. She whipped around and yelled to the teacher. "Get a doctor! She's hyperventilating!"

* * *

><p>"A-and she started screaming out of no where. She was having a full-on panic attack and it got to the point that she could barely breathe. They called an ambulance and took her away."<p>

Roughly twenty people stared at the speaker. Kentaro Machi, resident ganguro girl of Ouran Academy, sat on one of the couches in the Third Music Room, bleached hair in a messy bun and white eye make up streaked down her tanned cheeks. Her usual happy and excited personality was gone, little sobs replacing the giggles that usually filled the air around her. Her confident, informal speech and almost intolerably loud voice had disappeared, instead becoming quiet, quivering stutters. Every host was staring in shock at her, unable to turn away and return to their guests; every guest was staring in jealousy at the crying girl.

"I don't know why she freaked out like that, but I think this has something to do with it." She paused to reach into her dress sleeve, pulling out a folded square of paper and handing it to the Ootori boy, who sat across from her. She then continued, in a choked voice, "I think that's what made her flip out. It's a letter to Jin-Ye from Ami, the vice president of our club. After she was taken to the hospital, I volunteered to take her things to her home, and that was on top of everything else on her desk. It's... it sounds kind of threatening." She wiped a tear from her eyes, inadvertently smearing the make up further. She raised her head and gave the Ootori a pleading look.

He read over the paper, refolded it, and handed it back to the distraught blond. He straightened his glasses and stared at her. She shivered at his cold, emotionless eyes—his nickname was well-earned. "And why, exactly, have you chosen to share this with us?" The Shadow King's unsympathetic voice sounded mocking in Machi's ears, and drew another sob from her. She frowned.

"I'm friends with Nekozawa—sort of, anyway. I went to him first, but he said he couldn't help me unless I wanted Ami cursed. He told me what you did for him and Kirimi. I've known him since we were young, and anyone who could do that... They deserve the title of miracle worker. If you were able to help him, I know you'd be able to help me." She bit her lip and wiped away another tear. "Please."

"I _am_ sorry," his tone assured her he wasn't, "but I'm afraid we cannot help you."

This seemed to snap the boy sitting next to the Kentaro heiress back to reality. He jumped from his seat, grabbed the dark-haired boy's shoulders, and shook him. "Are you _heartless_, Kyoya?" He released his hold on the now-glaring Ootori and continued. "We _must_ help this poor girl and her psychotic friend! It is our duty!" From there, he launched into a dramatic speech, with exaggerated, overly-grand gestures and sweeping motions—which the agitated Shadow King thoroughly ignored, turning his attention instead back to Machi. "Like I said, we can't hel-"

She cut him off, a determined tone to her voice that hadn't been there before. "I can pay. Any amount of money, in the form of any official currency of any country on Earth. Yen, euros, won, pesos, pounds, rupees, whatever. Name a price, and I will pay it. Even if you can only find where Ami is or who Jin-Ye's mother is or who '_they_' are that are apparently coming after her. I have known Jin-Ye since the first day she stepped on this campus. She is closer to me than my own brother is, and I would do anything to keep her safe." She leaned forward, eyes narrowing just enough to be noticeable, and spoke in an almost threatening tone. "No one has any misconceptions about you, Ootori-senpai. Everyone knows what you can make happen. You're rumored to have more power than yakuza members and more influence than the most high-ranking government officers. I know you can help me. Anything that will make you do so, in any way whatsoever, name it and it is yours."

The dark haired boy stared for a moment. The ganguro girl could practically see the calculations dancing behind his eyes, could hear the vaguely triumphant tone of voice she would surely hear in a moment, one way or another. The carefully and meticulously maintained total neutrality of his expression slowly broke as the minutes ticked by. His lips curled ever so slightly in a small smirk, eyes sliding closed, as his contemplation came to an end. He stood from the sofa.

"Be warned, Kentaro-san, the services of the Ouran High Host Club _do not_ come cheap. But, if you are as determined as you seem to have our help, you have it." Pausing mid-speech, the Host Club's Prince type leapt at the Shadow King with an excited cry. While the heiress couldn't quite make out what it was he was yelling, it seemed to be something along the lines of, "Kyoya-kun does have a heart, he does have a heart," which the Ootori did not respond well to. His satisfied smirk had disappeared, place taken instead by stormy eyes and a deep frown, and he let out a quiet, low-pitch growl that sent a shiver up Machi's spine. The blond boy made a squealing sound and threw himself behind the nearest sofa.

After several seconds of debating with herself, Machi settled on refusing to acknowledge the so-called Host King entirely. She turned to face Kyoya completely, and looked him straight in the eye before dipping into a deep bow. "Thank you, Ootori-senpai."

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><p>Hundreds of miles away on a Seoul street, a tall Korean man leaned against the hood of a black Equus. A cellphone was held against his cheek.<p>

"Are you sure? She's been found?" He paused to let the person speak. "We cannot afford to make mistakes, Haneul. If you are wrong about this—" He was cut off. "... Yes. Fine. All of my men will be working on this by tomorrow morning."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I'd like to start by apologizing deeply for the ridiculously long delay. After a series of technological failures including a broken charger, a _second_ broken charger, and complete loss of almost everything on my laptop due to a virus one of my "friends" intentionally put on my computer because my test scores this year were higher than hers, I am back and working on the next few chapters of Kkangpae as we speak.

I am also working on a few little tidbits for New Evolution, although inspiration for that is coming a _liiittle_ too fast to keep up with everything.

I promise, updates will not take over six months in the future. Unless some deity really has it out for any technology I touch and something else breaks. In which case, I will go completely mad, and I doubt they'll let me near an internet connection and a word processor in the psych ward. But anyways, here is the fourth chapter of Kkangpae. Enjoy.

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><p><em>Mom was collapsed in a heap on the living room floor, tears streaming from her eyes. Her long black hair was matted and tangled from sleep. She was still in her robe. The wine-covered fabric stood out against the white carpet, and her tears left little dark circles in the fibers as they fell. I guess I wasn't stepping quite as lightly as I thought I had been<em>_; her head shot up and whipped around. She looked like a deer in the headlights. "Mommy, you'll hurt your neck like that. Don't turn around so fast."_

_She hastily wiped her eyes. She never liked it when daddy and I saw her upset. "Go back to your room, Eun-Ji. Go back to bed," she told me, voice cracking halfway through. She had been crying for a while._

_I was eleven. I didn't know any better. The first thing I felt when I saw mommy crying was curiosity, not the fear it should have been. I stepped closer, blatantly ignoring what she told me to do. "Why are you crying, mommy?" I looked around and realized, a little later than I should have, that I could only hear mom's crying. "Where is Jongmaru?"_

_She cried harder._

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><p>The view of the woman on the floor faded out as the rose garden faded in. With tears already flowing down her cheeks, Jin-Ye curled into herself with a loud, shaky sob. She saw the world in front of her through a watery curtain of tears, all green leaves, pink stone, and white flowers, blurred so they were only masses of emerald, white, and rose, blending together in the fading sunlight.<p>

She thought of how she must look right now, and immediately found herself disgusted with the picture that her mind conjured. Reduced to a quivering, sobbing heap on a bench in a lonely maze, with no trace of pride, dignity, or grace left; she cursed herself for this. She cursed herself for a lot of things today. She cursed herself for trusting Ami. She cursed herself for ever starting the club. She cursed herself for revealing her and her mother's positions to them (she knew it had to have been her fault somehow).

She cursed herself for waking up this morning.

Why was the world so unmerciful? Why couldn't fate simply allow her to die in her sleep, blissfully unaware of her own death? Why wouldn't it allow her peace, just this once?

She knew she would never know peace or bliss, though. Not after all she had seen and heard in her life. She knew how she was doomed to die: tied to a chair or otherwise restrained, staring into the darkness of a gun barrel. The last sight she would ever see would be the old black eyes of Kim Kangmin. The last sound she would ever heard would be the gunshot. And the same thing most likely applied to her mother, now.

_Expect worse._

She flinched as the words were brought to the front of her mind. Jongmaru had died terribly. Those two simple words destroyed her fantasy of a quick death by a gun to her head. Seeing them in the clear, clean handwriting that she had envied for so long, hearing them in the cold voice of the dark-haired girl she'd considered such a close friend... that made it a thousand times worse.

Ami shouldn't have known who she really was. There was no reason for her to think that Hyun Jin-Ye was anyone but Hyun Jin-Ye, daughter of South Korean drug addicts, placed into the foster system after her parents' arrest, adopted by the childless widow of Isobe Ryuuji. She mixed Korean slang into her Japanese 'on accident'. She told people her parents dyed her hair to hide from the police better. She had a Seoul accent that citizens of Seoul believed without so much as a drop of doubt. There was no flaw in her act, no indiscrepancy in her story. For all intents and purposes, she w_as_ Hyun Jin-Ye.

But that didn't matter much now. Soon enough, she was sure, she'd be dead. She would be left in a dumpster or dropped in a river or something that would keep the police from believing it was the kkangpae. That wasn't how kkangpae operated. If there were bodies, you didn't find them; no one did. No one would ever suspect Kim Kangmin or the organization that backed him. She was on her own. She knew she was.

Not twenty-four hours ago, she had called Tokyo police and been met with laughter and accusation of lying and attention-seeking. She had called Seoul police next, and the answer was even worse. It was devastating.

_"We apologize that we have neglected to inform you until now, miss, but your case has been dropped by the Seoul Police Force."_

She had dropped the phone and gone into another attack, right there on the floor of Isobe Setsuka's kitchen, only hours after being released from the hospital for the same thing. The widow knew about her tendency to anxiety attacks, though, and had a private doctor on hand for whenever Jin-Ye had one.

The Korean girl had gone to school, but skipped her classes. She had dragged herself along to the rose maze she had been to a million times before, her favorite place on Ouran's campus, and sat on the bench in the center all day. There were soaked tissues everywhere. It was 5pm now. The fact that she'd sat crying on the bench, surrounded by roses and little scented tissues, for over eight hours now made her hate herself. The fact that she was still alive made her hate herself more.

Footsteps stopped her suicidal train of thought—and her breathing—in its tracks. The tears stopped immediately as her body locked up with panic. She held her breath and closed her eyes, making herself go limp. Maybe thugs were like bears or mountain lions; maybe playing dead would make them go away. God, she hoped it would.

The light footsteps confused her, but that did nothing to make her stop panicking. It could always be a female thug. They were rare, but kkangpae sometimes had them. Whoever they were, they kept moving towards her, as she sat and waited for death.

"Unnie!" an aggravated voice called.

Now she was more confused. What thug sent to murder called their soon-to-be victim unnie? She stayed tense and did not move, on edge even more so than she had been when the steps had started. They were playing mind games. They wanted to torture her before putting a bullet in her.

The voice grew more annoyed. "Damn it, Jin-Ye, I know you're here! I followed the tissue trail!"

Jin-Ye's slow, shallow breathing stopped and her eyes snapped open in time to catch sight of a mass of bleached hair rounding the corner into the clearing. She didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved.

Machi eyed the tissues all over the stone with a slight frown. "Are you going to pick those up?"

"Probably not."

"That's littering."

"I don't care."

"I never said you did." The heiress moved Jin-Ye's feet off the bench and plopped down beside her friend. The Korean glanced at her face, look back at the stone in the ground, and immediately shot into a sitting position when something registered.

The skin beneath the unruly hair was pale. There was no trace of the heavy white eye make up. The mop of hair had been _brushed_, and it look like some brave soul had even made an attempt at straightening it. She gasped. The face she was staring into was one she hadn't seen for over a year.

"Machi, your make up! Why—"

Her friend cut her off. "I find you sitting in a maze, alone, in the dark, crying, panicking, and _littering_, and you think the matter in dire need of addressing is the fact that I'm not wearing my make up today? Hyun Jin-Ye, you need to reorganize your priorities." The darker haired of the two couldn't help but smile at that. "And I didn't wear my make up today because... well, let's just say it was a promise I made to a snake."

"What, no apples?"

"Nope. Someone used them all for cake."

Jin-Ye laughed and wiped her face again. "Apple cake sounds disgusting." Machi nodded and grinned at the other girl.

She didn't like that grin. It always seemed to mean disaster for someone, usually the general population of Tokyo. The bright, cheerful tone didn't help. "I did something to make you mad," the blond chirped. Jin-Ye eyed her warily.

"... what is it?"

Machis's grin grew wider, showing more of her sparkling teeth. The look was practically predatory. She snatched up her friend's wrists and started dragging, drawing a high-pitched yelp. "C'mon, I'll show you!"

The tissues were left on the ground, forgotten along with the suicidal thoughts and depressing death scenarios, as the two girls tore off through the halls of Ouran. Heels clicked rapidly against marble floors, doors flew past, and the only other person to be found was Nekozawa, who they rushed by with nothing but a shouted greeting from Machi that made the dark older boy jump.

She couldn't help but find herself reminded of her first day at Ouran. It was almost two years ago now, but she remembered it as one of her dearest memories and the happiest day she could remember since she'd visited Berlin. She had stepped into a classroom in a country she barely knew, separated from all her family and friends, on the verge of tears for various reasons. And almost immediately, she was nearly bowled over by a hyperactive mass of wild black hair and sparkling brown eyes that spoke with a voice somewhere close to dog whistle frequency. She would come to know that bundle of excessive energy as Kentaro Machi, heiress to the Kentaro family fortune, and as one of the only allies this world would seemingly have to offer her.

* * *

><p><em>"HI!" the overly-excited girl squealed. That voice was ear-grating. Even more, what with its owner attached to her chest and apparently unlikely to go anywhere any time soon. The arms wrapped tightly around Jin-Ye's waist seemed to be cutting off circulation.<em>

_Was this a punishment from God for some terrible wrong?_

_"My name is Kentaro Machi, heiress to Kentaro Cosme Cosmetics! I'm your new _bestest_ friend!" the girl exclaimed. Jin-Ye stared in confusion. Did they not teach restraint in Japan? Were they really as barbaric here as so many back in Seoul had claimed?_

_Just as she prepared to start gnawing off limbs in an attempt at escape, the classroom doors shut loudly, and the sound of expensive dress shoes clicking against the floor sent every student to their seat, Machi included. Jin-Ye was left standing at the front of the class, staring dumbfounded at the space the heiress had occupied just seconds ago. The newcomer cleared his throat, and she glanced up to find her teacher standing over her._

_"Er... hello," she managed, her mind still spinning._

_"Good day, class," the teacher began, blatantly ignoring her greeting. "This is Hyun Jin-Ye. She is a new student from South Korea. She was recently adopted by Isobe Setsuka. She will be in our class from now on."_

_The class muttered an unenthusiastic greeting. Many of the students openly glared. It seems tensions between Koreans and Japanese didn't work just one way. She was alone here.  
><em>

_The teacher looked back to Jin-Ye, addressing her for the first time. "Miss Hyun, take your seat." His eyes were cold. An adult, a teacher, glaring unsympathetically at a lost child. The tensions were undoubtedly anything but one-sided._

_She trudged to the only open seat in the classroom, which happened to be directly to the right of Kentaro Machi__—the only ally she seemed to have, after the looks her peers had given her. Unwilling to be without companionship (overbearing or otherwise) in the country she did not know, she offered her self-proclaimed friend a tentative smile before lowering her eyes to her desk. They remained there._

* * *

><p>Now, as the halls of the school she now knew so well blurred around her, she was beginning to question if the girl whose tanned hand was wrapped around her wrist in a vice grip truly was an ally after all. It could've been paranoia, but her sudden appearance in the garden and everything after... it gave her a sinking feeling. As if the end was finally here.<p>

Perhaps Machi had figured out who Jin-Ye was. Perhaps she intended to betray her. Perhaps she was working with Ami.

Perhaps she was working with _them_.


	5. A notice on the status of Kkangpae

I'm very, very sorry that this fic has more or less died. It's been well over a full year since I updated and over two since I first posted it. It's also been one of my best stories and favorite ideas, so I really regret letting it get like this. I've gone through a lot in the past two years, as a fic writer and in my personal life, and I began to hate the story because I went into it with so little planning.

I still have a lot of love for the idea I was trying to bring to life with it and I absolutely do not want to let that go. So, I've decided to start working on rewriting it with much better character design and plot outlining. I cannot keep going with the work I already have laid down here, because I am nowhere near proud of it and I believe that I can do much better now. But Kkangpae will begin again and hopefully be finished.

That said, I'm not continuing it here. I have more or less abandoned this account for various reasons, a lot of which have to do with people from my personal life finding this account and harassing me about it. I have a new account, the pen name is **Alley Lane**, and that is where I post my fanfiction now. I also have a fictionpress account under the same pen name with my original works on it.

Thank you so, so much for telling me you liked this story and encouraging me to continue and following and favoriting it. I am very sorry that I couldn't keep this running and that it took me so long to even post anything letting you guys know what happened. But rest assured, I'm not dead, and **Kkangpae is coming back soon**.

My other story, **New Evolution**, **will not be continued**. I've lost all motivation for that one, although I am still a Blackjack and I still love kpop. Hopefully I'll be posting kpop fic oneshots on the Alley Lane account from time to time as well.

Once again, thank you so much.


End file.
